


Pruning Shears

by CatLovePower



Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Gardener Jaskier, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia and Jaskier | Dandelion Go To The Coast, Horny Jaskier | Dandelion, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Priest Geralt, but he also kills people
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-23
Updated: 2020-08-23
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:08:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26073172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CatLovePower/pseuds/CatLovePower
Summary: “Jaskier should have opened a flower shop. That kind of thing probably never happened in nice, quiet flower shops, he thought bitterly, with his knees in a puddle of coagulating blood.”In which Jaskier’s gardening job proves unexpectedly dangerous, and he is propelled into a life of crime when a strange priest called Geralt, who might or might not be an assassin, decides to help him escape.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 8
Kudos: 110





	Pruning Shears

**Author's Note:**

> “Change your line of work.”  
> “To what?”  
> “Whatever. Become a priest. You wouldn’t be bad at it with all your scruples, your morality, your knowledge of people and of everything. The fact that you don’t believe in any gods shouldn’t be a problem – I don’t know many priests who do. Become a priest and stop feeling sorry for yourself.” (…)  
> “If I were to find that the demand for poetry had come to an end, I’d hang up my lute and become a gardener. I’d grow roses.”  
> ( _‘The Voice of Reason 5’_ , The Last Wish)

Jaskier was supposed to be working on the flower beds in the huge gardens surrounding Mr Estrevel’s mansion, and yet here he was, half naked in the private wing, on the doorstep of Mrs Estrevel’s chamber. Rich people and their separate rooms had always seemed like a funny notion to him, but he guessed that when your husband was thirty years older and your house had so many rooms, you could always keep one to yourself – to invite young gardeners while your ugly husband was away. 

Jaskier was struggling with his mud-covered boots now, halfway out of his light blue coveralls, while Mrs Estrevel – Sophie – was already waiting for him on the huge bed in the middle of the room. It even had a ceiling mirror, she had told him, before leading him upstairs, laughing and flicking her very long blond hair. She was as pretty as her husband was mean. Served him right for letting such a nice woman all to herself all day, Jaskier thought with a fond smile. 

He hadn’t even reached the bed when something whizzed past his left ear and hit Sophie right between the eyes. She blinked once and fell backward on the bed, the red smear on the wall behind her leaving no doubt to what had just happened. Jaskier stayed frozen in place, his coveralls still on his hips. There was blood everywhere on the sheets, he could see it in the mirror, as Sophie was watching him with dead eyes and her mouth slightly agape. 

He heard a noise in his back and quickly turned around, suddenly face to face with a short man sporting a dark balaclava. If it had been a movie, the gun in his hand would have still been smoking, but this was real, and the gun looked black and boring.

The man charged at him with a grunt. They fell on the floor, and Jaskier grappled around, trying to put his hands on… There! He gripped the discarded pruning shears as if his life depended on it – well, it probably did – and drove them upward into the man’s neck. He gurgled his surprise and showered Jaskier in dark, warm blood – oh dear, why was it so warm? He dropped his gun and pitched forward, briefly crushing a panicked Jaskier, who had to push and squirm to free himself.

*

There was so much blood, Jaskier thought, as he scrubbed the floors next to the rolled carpet containing one very dead… hitman? He didn’t even know and he wasn’t sure he wanted to. Sophie was bundled in the bed covers, but he could still see strands of blond hair peeking out. He shuddered and scrubbed harder. 

He should have opened a flower shop; that kind of thing probably never happened in nice, quiet flower shops, he thought bitterly, with his knees in a puddle of coagulating blood.

He didn’t hear the intruder sneak up on him until it was too late, and another strange man was towering over him, haloed by the corridor lights like some fantastic apparition. He was tall and broad, all clad in black; his hair was long and white, but he wasn’t old, Jaskier could tell. He had the white collar of a priest around his neck, and a gun with a silencer in his hand.

The stranger took in the scene before him, his yellow eyes narrowing slightly on Jaskier, and he whispered a quiet “Fuck” between clenched teeth.

Jaskier should have begged for mercy, anyone would have, but he was too tired and too annoyed to even try. He let go of the scrubbing brush and sat on his heels, his hands opened as a show of good faith. The stranger grunted something Jaskier didn’t catch, and strode in the chamber, going around the gardener to look at the bodies lying next to the door. 

“He killed her and then you killed him?” he asked Jaskier without even looking at him. 

“Yes, but it was totally an accident, I swear,” Jaskier started, craning his neck to look at the priest. He probably wasn’t really a priest, but that was a weird cover for an assassin. “I mean, he was going to kill me next so I took the shears and… Are you really a priest? Or is it just a costume you wear when you go about killing people – although this time I must confess you’re a little late…”

“Do you always talk so much?” The fake priest asked, and he sounded amused at Jaskier’s panicked babbling. 

“Only when I’m stressed,” Jaskier chuckled despite the situation. He could feel his frayed nerves about to snap.

“What were you planning on doing with the bodies?” the tall man asked next, calm and authoritative.

His yellow eyes studied Jaskier; he didn’t seem menacing, only curious. Under his gaze, the gardener became terribly aware of the drying blood on his clothes and skin, and suddenly he really wanted a hot shower, and to scrub his own body as hard as he had been scrubbing the floor.

“I have a trench dug up in the back garden. For flowers,” he added to clarify. “I don’t usually plant dead bodies.”

The stranger raised an eyebrow at that. “You work here?” he asked. 

“Yes, in the garden,” Jaskier confirmed, and the idiocy of his plan suddenly dawned on him. He smacked his forehead, probably leaving more blood smears on his face.

“Who are you anyway?” he asked the fake priest none too gently. “Are you here to kill me too?” 

“I highly doubt you were his target.” The tall man pushed the dead hitman in the carpet with his foot. “And I won’t kill you.” 

“Uh, thanks,” Jaskier said stupidly. “Now what?” 

“Now we fake your death,” the priest said with a smirk. 

*

The assassin – Geralt, he said his name was – had him strip and take a shower in Sophie’s bathroom. As much as he wanted to be naked earlier, it felt weird and slightly degrading to be ordered around by a stranger who took his clothes and left him in the shower of a dead person. He was really looking forward to some hot sex in there the next morning, he thought, as he watched rivulets of pink water slither between his feet. 

When he got out, there were folded clothes waiting for him on the bed. On very white sheets, devoid of any blood. That priest sure was fast to clean up; or maybe Jaskier just stayed a little too long in the shower. The bodies were gone as well, and the floor was all scraped up and smelling like bleach.

He quickly donned the borrowed clothes, black pants and a shirt, slightly too large for him; they must be Geralt’s, he thought distractedly. Then he came downstairs barefoot, because his boots were nowhere to be found. 

The scene in the living room nearly gave him a heart attack. Sophie and the hitman were sitting on the settee, and it looked like they had killed each other. She was gripping Jaskier’s shears, and he was holding his gun. Geralt had his back to them and was dousing the room in something that strongly smelled like gasoline. 

“You’re not a real priest, are you?” Jaskier asked in a tiny voice, because that seemed important somehow. He wondered if he could maybe ask to keep the shears, they were one of his best tools.

“Close enough,” Geralt shrugged. “Let’s go.” 

“What? Where? I don’t even have shoes!” Jaskier sputtered, as his mind kept nagging him about the most insignificant details of his predicament. 

“He’s wearing them,” Geralt indicated the dead hitman with a nod, and true, he was dressed in Jaskier’s blue coveralls, complete down to the muddied boots. 

“What about DNA?” the gardener asked. “What about prints?” he continued, as Geralt grabbed him by the collar, pushing him in the direction of the backdoor.

“The fire and Eskel will take care of that,” was his only answer.

“What fire? Who’s Eskel? Where am I supposed to go now?” Jaskier was having none of it, as he struggled to follow barefoot, wincing when he walked on the tiny gravels of the path.

Geralt only grunted his annoyance, not letting go of him. He threw a lighter inside the house and the whole place went up in flames. Then he helped Jaskier sit behind him on a huge black motorcycle, only telling him to hold on tight before starting up the engine. 

*

Eskel was the most hideous man Jaskier had ever seen. The shaken gardener nearly asked what happened to his face but stopped himself because he wasn’t sure of his reaction and he didn’t want to get on his bad side. Despite the scar tissue obscuring his traits, he and Geralt looked like brothers, if only for the hair. His was brown and short. 

Jaskier was currently hugging a cup of steaming hot tea – he had sniffed it carefully before taking a sip – on the battered couch of that Eskel character, who was apparently a con artist, a painter and an ex soldier. He would forge him a new identity, Geralt had said, like it was nothing.

The gardener looked at his still naked feet on the shabby carpet and wondered how he was going to repay them and if he could maybe go back to get his things. Probably not, as he was supposed to have died in the fire at Estevel’s house. His pickup was still in the alley in front of the mansion. 

“So, can I ask a silly question?” Eskel asked without looking up from his work. He was scanning a photograph of Jaskier he just took to create a fake ID.

“Hmm,” Geralt grunted from where he stood, his massive arms crossed and his face closed, as if he was expecting trouble.

“Why didn’t the kid just call the cops?” He continued. “Saying it was self-defense or something?”

“It was,” Jaskier muttered into his mug.

“Hmm,” Geralt said, as if it meant anything.

Apparently it did to Eskel, because the forger nodded and went back to his work. Trying to bury the bodies was dumb, but to his defense, Jaskier had just escaped death, and he wasn’t thinking clearly. He still wasn’t entirely sure of Geralt’s intentions, but what were his other options at the moment?

After a while, he went to sit next to Eskel and watched him work. He had large, tanned hands, and yet he was very careful with his instruments; first ink, then a computer program.

“I think he fancies you,” Eskel whispered, eyeing Geralt who stood guard next to the door, his face set in a neutral expression.

“Is it something he does often?” Jaskier asked in the same conspiratorial tone. “Helping out targets instead of killing them?” 

“Not the first time,” Eskel unhelpfully answered without elaborating further.

Jaskier huffed and turned his attention to the various paintings on the floor, propped up against the wall. Most of them were deserts and small villages with tiny people. It looked Middle Eastern, but Jaskier didn’t dare ask about them. It was surprising to know someone that ugly had painted such careful depictions of everyday life in faraway lands. Maybe they were memories from overseas missions, Jaskier thought, as he recalled that he was ex military. 

It took another half an hour of awkward silence from Geralt, and precise work from Eskel, before Jaskier was finally given a brand new – fake – ID. 

As they were about to leave the flat, Jaskier mused, “So what, do I now belong to you?” He waived his new ID at Geralt when he looked confused. He got an annoyed huff for only answer, and a push towards the stairs.

*

Geralt drove downtown, in a maze of narrow streets bordered by dull pavilions and small houses. They stopped in front of one that looked abandoned; paint was chipping and there were weeds everywhere. Geralt unlocked the door and pushed Jaskier inside. He muttered something about an evening sermon he had to make, and told him not to do anything dumb in the meantime.

Jaskier didn’t even have time to ask what he meant with that, and if he was going to kill someone or actually preach at a church. It would have required Geralt to use words, and Jaskier wasn’t sure he could. Through the closed door, he heard Geralt rev the engine of his motorcycle before driving away. 

*

It was dark inside, all the shutters were closed; he fumbled around and found a switch. With light it was even more depressing than it smelt. It looked too bare to be where Geralt lived – at least Jaskier hoped so, because it was true the man seemed pretty ascetic. 

Jaskier sat on the small sofa – lumpy and too battered to be comfortable – then looked for food in the fridge – he only found a moldy tomato and some suspicious juice – and tried to turn on the TV – but the reception was terrible and he couldn’t focus on anything.

Bored out of his mind, he managed to open a door and got out to the back garden. There were plants there, once tended to, but now growing freely like weeds. Jaskier smiled and sat down to talk to them.

He told them about his crazy afternoon and how he lost all his tools, his shoes and possibly even his whole identity. He didn’t like his real name or his family anyway, not that it mattered anymore.

He told them about Sophie and how he didn’t know her that well, only that she was gorgeous and that she didn’t deserve to die.

He was halfway through describing Geralt and how fascinating he was – the hair, the whole black attire and the priesthood that felt like a joke – when the man himself set foot in the small garden, startling Jaskier and interrupting his soliloquy. 

“What was hard to understand in my earlier instructions?” he growled, stepping closer.

Jaskier shrugged and tried an apologetic smile. 

“At least you’re not in anyone else’s bed, this time,” Geralt muttered, and Jaskier raised an eyebrow at that. 

“Are you jealous?” Jaskier asked with a smirk. He pushed back his hair and looked at Geralt from where he sat on the floor.

And the fake (real?) priest said nothing, but his pale skin did get a shade pinker as he blushed.

“Come here,” he growled.

Jaskier got to his feet and brushed his borrowed clothes. He approached, curious, only to get grabbed by the back of his shirt and frogmarched into the living room.

“You’re very touchy-feely, you know that?” Jaskier commented with a pout, straightening his collar when Geralt released it.

“I brought food.” 

“Aw, you’re spoiling me!” Jaskier mocked, faking enthusiasm.

*

At the sight of the groceries on the table, Jaskier realized how famished he was. He helped himself to some bread and ham and quickly put together a sad sandwich, under Geralt’s amused gaze. 

“Your house is pretty depressing,” Jaskier remarked with his mouth half-full. 

“This isn’t my house.”

“What is it then, your sex den?” And since Geralt looked pretty shocked at that, playing the part of the celibate priest pretty well, Jaskier insisted. “What, don’t tell me you didn’t think of my plump lips around your big…”

“Jaskier!” Geralt cut him off. “What is wrong with you?” 

“I nearly died today! I lost my truck!” Jaskier exploded. “So excuse me if I’m deflecting a little. I do find you attractive,” he added softly, not looking the priest in the eye. 

Silence stretched, and Geralt didn’t seem to mind, but Jaskier grew uneasy.

“So, why did you help me? I mean, you could have killed me, or just send me on my way. I wouldn’t have talked, you know. I’m quite good at running away from my problems,” Jaskier babbled.

“I recognized you,” Geralt said softly, and Jaskier looked at him with a puzzled expression. “I was sent to kill Mrs Estevel and any witnesses,” he explained, and Jaskier shuddered at the thought. “But I recognized you. There is… an open hit on your head.” 

“A what now? Are you implying that you were indeed there to kill me earlier? Geralt, I’m hurt, I thought we had a good thing going on there, you saved me and now you want to… what? Kill me for money? And you’re rubbing it in. It’s just too…”

Geralt growled at him, puffing his cheeks and baring his teeth. Jaskier gulped and fell silent – not that he was scared, more out of surprise. 

“Someone botched the Estrevel hit and hired two guys for the same target,” Geralt explained. “And your father wants you dead,” he added matter-of-factly.

“Nothing new there,” Jaskier rolled his eyes. “Why do you think I live out of the back of my pickup and crash at the mansions I work at when the owners are away?”

“Hmm.” 

“Exactly.” Jaskier nodded. “Once again, my father manages to make my life a living hell,” Jaskier muttered as he munched on his sandwich.

Geralt didn’t ask any questions. Either he knew about Pancratz Sr’s links with the London mafia, and how Jaskier ran away when he was young to become a gardener, because he liked flowers and not murders, or he didn’t care at all. Maybe he was already regretting his decision not to kill him on the spot. 

“My earlier offer still stands,” Jaskier tried, before there was nothing like life affirming sex after a scary day. He licked his lips in a manner he hoped looked suggestive and not like he was having a stroke. He had been told that the line was fine between the two when he tried to flirt, but it wasn’t stopping him. 

“Stay here for the night, I’ll be back tomorrow,” Geralt said, disappointingly striding to the door. “Take a cold shower, that helps.” His tone was dry, but there was a glint of malice in his eye. 

“What is this? Horny jail?” Jaskier whined from the sofa. “Geralt, come back! I was joking. Don’t leave me here!” he mockingly screamed as the door slammed shut. 

*

Geralt’s church was a small building in the city. It looked old, older than the buildings around. It was late morning, and there weren’t a lot of people inside. A couple of tourists taking pictures of ugly stained glass windows, and an old woman sitting in the pews with her head bowed. Jaskier quickly looked around and zeroed in on the wooden box of the confessional on the side. 

“I thought you were joking with that priest costume,” he said, once he caught a glimpse of white hair through the lattice partition. “I wasn’t expecting to find you in a real church.” 

Geralt opened the little latch separating them and whispered back, “How did you find me?” 

“Relax, I totally didn’t go around asking about the church where the hot priest worked.”

“Hot?” 

“Like you don’t know it.” 

“Jaskier, what are you doing here?” Geralt said with a tired sigh, letting his head rest on the wall behind him. 

“I’ve had impure thoughts and I needed to confess?” Jaskier grinned with all his teeth, turning his head to try and look at him.

“I can see why your father wants you dead,” Geralt muttered to himself, and Jaskier pretended to be hurt for a second. “How did you even come here?”

“I got bored,” Jaskier shrugged, even though Geralt couldn’t see it. “I walked to the city, sang songs at a street corner and got enough money for coffee and shoes from Oxfam.”

“Wait, you can sing?” 

“That’s your take from all that? No horrified, “poor Jaskier, you had to walk all the way barefoot? Yes, I can sing, pretty well I think,” Jaskier still confirmed. “But musicians get noticed, and that’s the last thing I want.” There was some regret there, but he tried not to think too much about all the missed possibilities a life on the run was bound to create.

“Well, that was reckless and dangerous.”

“Like everything I do, really.” Jaskier smirked. “I think I’m attracted to danger,” he continued, trying to see Geralt’s through the dark opening. “And dangerous people make me horny.”

“Hmm,” was Geralt’s only answer, and that wasn’t helpful at all. 

“So, how does this confession thing work?” Jaskier tried instead.

“Meet me in the sacristy in a minute,” Geralt said, and he closed the hatch a little forcefully, as Jaskier whispered, “Kinky.” 

*

He found his way into the back of the church pretty easily. The tourists were gone, and nobody saw him slip into the dark sacristy. It smelled of incense and dust. Geralt was there, looking pissed, waiting for him with his arms crossed. 

“What is it you want?” he hissed.

“You tell me.” Jaskier shrugged. “You’re the one who rescued me.” 

“I can tell you’re hitting on me. What part of ‘I’m a priest’ is hard to understand?”

He had a point, Jaskier thought, but… “You’re also a hitman,” Jaskier remarked, waving his index finger and poking Geralt in the chest. It was so broad that the buttons of his black shirt were visibly straining. 

“You know nothing about me,” Geralt argued with a small hesitation in his voice, and Jaskier hoped that it was his resolve crumbling. Usually nobody could resist his charm, and people either wanted to fuck or strangle him, so he hoped it was heading to the first option, or at least a kink version of the second one.

Jaskier was opening his mouth to reply, probably something witty, when Geralt grabbed his arm and brought him closer. He crashed his lips against Jaskier’s, who gasped like a fish out of water in a very unsexy way, before his body remembered the motions and he just melted in Geralt’s arms. 

“Not that I mind, but why?” Jaskier asked when they broke the kiss.

“Hmm. Figured if I gave you what you wanted you’d leave me alone.” 

“ _Au contraire, mon cher!_ ” Jaskier said triumphantly, using what little French he knew to hide his sudden desperation. There was no way he was letting such a fascinating man get away from him, not after… whatever that was.

*

In the end, Geralt reluctantly let him stay for the afternoon mass. There weren’t a lot of people present, and they didn’t really seem to mind Geralt’s weird sermon, which was both extremely concise and gruff, but also somewhat heartfelt. It didn’t seem like he believed a word he was saying, but he also cared for his parishioners and he tried really hard to make sense.

Jaskier wondered how something like that had happened, if Geralt had decided to hide in a church after a hit gone wrong and accidentally became a priest, or if it had been a more conscious decision at some point, some sort of redemption act from a sinner.

That evening, Geralt stayed with him at the safe house and they ate junk food in front of the TV. The news were still rattling about the dramatic fire at Estrevel’s manor, and the widower was seen crying crocodile tears and repeating he couldn’t believe his wife was having an affair with the gardener. Jaskier grimaced and Geralt turned off the TV. 

“I think I need to go away,” Jaskier said, looking grim. “Somewhere far. Maybe to the coast, somewhere warm?” 

Geralt was sitting very still beside him. They didn’t know each other, he said as much earlier, but Jaskier suddenly felt the deep pull of yearning, and an emptiness at the thought of leaving without him. “Maybe you could do with a break?” he tried, puzzling himself with his own timidity.

Geralt stood up, mumbled his goodbyes and left him with unfinished thoughts, longing for more.

*

Jaskier was balancing snacks and a cold drink on a tray for a mind-numbing afternoon in front of the barely working TV – he was allowed to indulge, he was dead, after all! He was carefully making his way to the living room when the front door opened with a bang, startling him. He dropped the tray, not caring about the crisps because there was a stranger on the doorstep.

He looked young, brown hair matted with sweat and possibly blood. He came in, leaning against the wall, one hand gripping his side, and the other one holding a gun. He raised his arm and pointed the weapon at Jaskier, who stood frozen in place.

“Who the fuck are you?” the injured stranger rasped. There was blood seeping from underneath his fingers. He looked half-dead but also very deadly.

Jaskier reacted totally on auto pilot and he dove behind the sofa and fumbled until his fingers latched on the remote on the coffee table. Then he flung it at the stranger, not even raising his head to aim, and still hitting him in the face. The man slid to the floor with a grunt.

*

Jaskier wasn’t sure what went through Geralt’s head when he came back in the evening and found a broken front door and blood on the wall and floor of the hall. He didn’t look fazed when he burst into the kitchen to the bizarre sight of a bloodied man tending to his own injuries, under Jaskier’s scrutiny and the slightly shaking aim of the gun he was gripping tightly.

“Lambert,” Geralt said, greeting the man curtly.

“Geralt,” Lambert said with a grunt. He had fished the bullet out of his own abdomen in front of Jaskier’s horrified eyes, and he was now trying to bandage the wound tightly, somewhat hindered by the fact that he was tied to the chair with ripped sheets. 

Jaskier let out a sigh of relief and quickly got behind Geralt, handing him the gun and trusting him to protect him against that Lambert character. But Geralt moved closer and untied him, much to Jaskier’s dismay.

“Care to explain what this bloke is doing in our safe house?” Lambert asked, and he threw an angry look at Jaskier.

“Did he shoot you?”

Both Jaskier and Lambert let out indignant sounds at that, and Geralt smiled as he helped Lambert move to the living room.

“It was the mob. The Ukrainians,” Lambert explained once he got his breath back. There was still a sheen of sweat on his face, and he looked pretty pale, but that wasn’t stopping him from swearing and getting all worked up. “They killed Aiden, Geralt. Those bastards want to control the whole killing business. They’re taking over the whole region.” 

They talked for a while – well Lambert grumbled angrily about the revenge he was going to get, and Geralt hmm-ed his opinion about it. There was a pattern of inflections to those “hmms” that Jaskier was starting to recognize. They discussed in detail the hit that nearly cost Lambert his life, while one of his friends wasn’t so lucky. 

The young hitman was adamant he would be as right as rain in a day or two, and that he’d be on the war path to avenge his friend, but that was mostly bravado, because he looked about to faint. Jaskier hovered close, still on the fence about the man. 

Sensing this, Lambert tried to apologize, in his special and colorful way. He turned to Geralt and said with a smirk, “Okay, I’m sorry for scaring your twink.” 

“Excuse you!” Jaskier made an outraged noise and nearly choked on air, dramatic as ever. “I’m clearly his otter.”

Geralt stayed silent throughout the exchange, looking like a man whose headache had a name and currently lived in his safehouse.

“He’s not my anything,” Geralt said, pinching the brink of his nose.

“Not even your gardener?” Jaskier tried with a smile. 

“Hmm.” 

*

Lambert stayed a few days, mostly swearing endlessly or sleeping on the sofa, while Jaskier tended to the back garden and munched on the provisions that Geralt brought with each visit. They talked, a lot. Well, Geralt remained pretty monosyllabic, and Jaskier could babble for hours. Most of the time they were whispering because they didn’t want to wake Lambert or to have nosy neighbors listening in on them. 

It turned out they had a lot in common, despite their very different paths in life. For starters their respective shitty childhoods were pretty similar. But Jaskier fled from a life of crime, and Geralt was forced to embrace it. His first kill was in the army, but the organization recruited him soon after he came back to England. Jaskier got no explanation to the whole priest thing, despite his – not so subtle – allusions to how hot it was.

“Run away with me,” Jaskier said, out of the blue but not really, because if Lambert was to be trusted, the mob was getting rid of the competition, and Geralt was most likely their next target. 

“I have a mas,” Geralt said, looking at the overcast sky, grey with pollution and rain clouds.

“A mass? At this hour?” Jaskier asked dumbly.

“No, a mas,” Geralt corrected. “It’s a sort of farmhouse in the South of France. It even has a vineyard.” 

“That’s great!” Jaskier exclaimed. “Let’s elope to your vineyard. How do you even own such a place? No, don’t tell me, it was payment for a hit?” 

Geralt stayed silent after that, and Jaskier dropped it. But he could hear the wheels turning in Geralt’s head. Considering the idea, maybe, hopefully.

*

True to his word, Lambert only stayed a few days, eating all of Jaskier’s provisions, before disappearing as quickly as he came; but with less blood and drama.

The back garden was flourishing now, but Jaskier wanted more. He wanted physical touch and quick fucks in the morning, and maybe to be able to come and go as he pleased without endangering himself. Instead he got half-hearted grunts and stifled pats on the shoulder.

From what Geralt had gathered, the police knew by now that the man they found at the mansion wasn’t Jaskier. And even if the information hadn’t been made public yet, Geralt didn’t doubt a second that anyone with criminal ties was now aware that the Lettenhove contract was active again.

Geralt’s knuckles were bruised and split open each time he visited Jaskier in the safe house. 

“Be ready,” he would say. “You might have to move quickly.”

He never included himself in those doom-laden statements, much to Jaskier’s dismay. Geralt seemed to be avoiding physical contact as much as he could, only staying a few minutes, dropping supplies and turning around without as much as a goodbye. 

It was annoying, and it made Jaskier want to walk all the way into the city again. He’d open the doors of the church, maybe it’d be during a ceremony or a mass; he’d yell, startling everyone with his stupid affection for the fake priest. Was that what Stockholm syndrome was about? In Jaskier’s opinion, it sucked.

But Geralt had never said no to the whole vineyard escape.

*

The door slammed open and banged against the wall – what was it with hitmen and dramatic entrances, really? – and Jaskier nearly fell off the sofa where he was napping. 

“Let’s go. Now.” Judging by Geralt’s tone, it wasn’t an exercise; he looked focused – not tensed, not worried – deadly. 

Jaskier got to his feet and joined him outside the house. But despite the apparent urgency of the situation, he couldn’t resist and joked, “Are you finally going to ravish me?” And then he wrinkled his nose and added, hands on his hips, “I disapprove of your choice of ride.” Instead of Geralt’s black motorcycle, this time he drove a grey van with blacked out windows and missing plates.

Geralt propelled him forward with a tight grip on the collar of his shirt; this one was purple, with tiny white flowers, because, “Really, Geralt, I can’t wear black all the time like you!” And Geralt had caved and brought clothes more suited to his tastes. He had probably snatched them from the charity box of the church, but Jaskier didn’t mind.

He let the hitman throw him into the passenger seat, and he buckled his seat belt without even knowing where they were going. It felt like an adventure; he got a tiny pang of guilt about abandoning the plants from the back garden, they had been good listeners after all.

They drove in silence – and slightly above speed limits – until it became clear they were heading south.

“Are we really doing this? You’re not dropping me into a ferry and staying behind, right?” Jaskier mumbled. 

“We’re doing this,” Geralt said, taking a sharp turn, his jaw clenching and unclenching.

“Is Lambert…?” Jaskier hesitated, because even if he didn’t get along with the younger hitman, he didn’t wish him ill.

“He’s fine. Fighting his own battles.” 

So, probably doing something reckless and stupid to avenge his friend, Jaskier translated. He could get behind that. “Good, that’s good.” 

*

They stopped on a pier that looked abandoned. It was the ugly part of the port, the one where merchandise came in at night, rather than during the day. Jaskier jumped out of the van and stretched his legs, kicking an empty beer bottle and sending it rolling further. 

“Don’t,” Geralt warned, not specifying exactly what he wasn’t supposed to do. Don’t stray away, don’t make noise, don’t kick rubbish? Jaskier was about to open his mouth and comment when Geralt pushed him, with his whole palm, smack between the shoulder blades. He got propelled forward and stumbled. He only registered the sound of bullets whizzing past a second later. 

Geralt took his gun out from the waistband of his slacks – hot, Jaskier thought – and started shooting at the roof of one of the nearby containers. Pop, pop, precise shots that hit their target, judging from the grunts of pain that followed.

“Run to the boat,” Geralt said, not even looking at him. 

Jaskier was about to ask what boat, but there was only one docked there. He started sprinting, hoping Geralt was on his heels because he wasn’t a sailor, and there was no way he could drive this thing anywhere. He jumped aboard; it was a small fishing boat, the kind that reeked of fish and salt. He headed towards the small cabin, trying to find shelter. The gunshots had stopped by now, but he wasn’t taking any chances.

He felt the boat lurch just as he opened the door. Someone had joined him on the boat, and his hopes that it was Geralt were crushed a second later when a giant paw clasped on his nape, shoving him against the wall outside the cabin. Geralt liked to push him around, but he had never actually hurt him. Hot breath against his ear made him shudder, as his assailant whispered something in a language he didn’t speak. 

Jaskier tried to shake him off, hitting him with his elbow, but the man was made of steel and laughed. His shoulder and his face hurt. Where was his sexy assassin priest of a friend when he needed him? He struggled some more, only to get rammed head first into the wall. 

He heard Geralt’s booming voice coming from behind, and he dizzily let the huge Ukrainian whirl him around. He was apparently a bargaining chip now; or they maybe planned on shipping him back to his father in London. At the thought, he felt an immense rage, and his dream of opening a quiet flower shop away from violence and murder came back in full force. 

He kicked backwards, hitting the man in the shin. His grip loosen just enough for Jaskier to drop, and for Geralt to hit the man between the eyes. He fell in slow motion, as if he refused to give up even in death.

“Untie the boat,” Geralt urged. “There,” he repeated, pointing at the cord which snaked around the metal thingy keeping the boat docked. Jaskier quickly got to work with shaking hands and numb fingers, while he could hear Geralt hauling the Ukrainian’s body overboard. 

They got out of the port as fast as the motor of the fishboat would allow. Was that thing even sturdy enough to cross the Channel? Did Geralt really leave dead bodies everywhere on the pier? Jaskier had so many questions, and he felt lightheaded all of a sudden. His shoulder still hurt, and when he raised a hand to touch it, it came back wet. He looked at his fingers, blinking dumbly because they were glistening red. Oh, that wasn’t good, he thought.

He managed to stumble all the way to the small cabin, met Geralt’s eyes and said, “I think I’m bleeding?”, before promptly passing out.

*

Jaskier only woke up again a few hours later with a stiff shoulder and a headache, and complained that he had missed the whole boat ride. The burly Ukrainian had apparently managed to impale him on a fishing hook as big as his fist, suspended outside the cabin.

“I mean, Geralt, who needs hooks that big? They’re clearly overcompensating for something,” Jaskier joked, but his voice was airy and the effect was lost. Geralt looked worried, like he never had before, and it made Jaskier feel fuzzy inside, well fuzzier than the blood loss.

They had gotten off the boat at one point, and Jaskier wondered if Geralt had carried him bridal style. They were now going south in the wrong lane, in a car that was all weird, driven by a young woman with a frizzy head of red hair. 

“I’m Triss,” she had said with a smile and a British accent, when Jaskier came round. “A friend of Geralt’s.” 

“Hmm,” Geralt said, as there was probably more to the story of how they met. But he didn’t add anything, much to Jaskier’s chagrin. He fell asleep soon after that, lulled by the monotony of French highways at night.

*

They settled in Geralt’s mas in Provence, awkward at first, because they both had lost their jobs, their lives, and the newfound proximity was strange. Lambert kept in touch and it seemed to help Geralt. He went from distressingly brooding to merely taciturn. Jaskier could work with that.

What little French Jaskier knew proved enough for him to make a lot of friends in the village. He would regal people with stories in a language so mangled that everyone was laughing, but they kept coming back for more.

He quickly found a job in a small flower shop, making bouquets for unfaithful husbands and young lovers, old couples, weddings and funerals. Nobody died from unnatural causes here, and life was peaceful enough.

Geralt remained a quiet eccentric, always dressed in black despite the stifling heat of summer. He never wore the priest collar again, but black was his thing apparently. Jaskier knew the scars that mottled his body, underneath, and he could understand that he didn’t want anyone to see them.

For a while, they pretended to be just friends – “We need to maintain our cover,” Geralt would say. But the villagers weren’t stupid, and no one believed that the two strange Britons who arrived the same day didn’t know each other. And they weren’t friends, not really, having bypassed that step in their relationship, going straight to eloped lovers with a shady past.

It turned out Geralt knew nothing about wine, but the man who had been tending to his vineyard for years was happy to show him the ropes, and Jaskier was overjoyed to share some of his erudition about plants and how to care for them. If anything, Geralt liked to take long walks in between the rows of vines, and in the distance he looked like a tall scarecrow. 

And sometimes, Jaskier would close the shop early, and slip out to join him. They would lay in the hay and kiss and eat grapes, letting the cicadas numb their thoughts with their incessant noise.

**Author's Note:**

> I was reading _The Last Wish_ , and... this happened. Good? Bad? You tell me :")  
> Special thanks to my beta who had to put up with me trying to sound British.


End file.
